This is what I’m thinking:
* To borrow a phrase from the late Jack Buck, I couldn’t believe what I just saw doing Texas’ win over St. Louis in Game 5 of the World Series Monday night.
Jack’s son, Joe, the Fox play-by-play man, was interviewing Texas pitcher Derek Holland during the action while the Rangers were behind early in the game.
It wasn’t as much an interview as a performance and it spoke volumes about baseball’s need to do something to attract viewers because the game itself just isn’t as exciting or entertaining as it needs to be.
At Buck’s urging, Holland did imitations of the late announcing legend Harry Caray and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that distracted from the importance of the pivotal game.
The imitations by the pitching star of Game 4 were fun, but took away from the seriousness of the situation. This was the kind of thing you might expect from a summer game on a Saturday afternoon in July rather than a World Series.
My astonishment was seconded the next day by Jim Rome on his syndicated show on WGR. Rome wondered what the reaction would have been if Cardinal star Matt Holliday had hit a three-run home run instead of hit into a double play while Holland was doing his best Harry Caray imitation.
Good question.
Holland’s performance didn’t help the ratings in Buffalo. The game averaged about a 6.5 rating on WUTV, the local Fox affiliate. The first five games of the Series are averaging about a 5.6 rating here, which is about 25 percent lower than San Francisco’s five-game Series victory over Texas last year. The ratings here are well below the national average.
Why? It is a popular view of many readers that interest in playoff baseball diminishes locally if the New York Yankees aren’t involved. That’s certainly true. But it doesn’t explain a 25 percent drop from a year ago when Texas was involved in both series.
* NBC’s “Prime Suspect” week is killing Channel 2’s late newscast. On Monday, the “Suspect” lead-in of a 2.5 rating really hurt. Channel 2 doubled the lead-in to a 5.2 for its newscast, but that was closer in range to third place Channel 7 than first place Channel 4 at 11 p.m.
*The big ratings bump that “Two and a Half Men” received with Ashton Kutcher’s arrival is slowly diminishing each week. “Men” settled to a 14.6 rating on Monday on Channel 4, about half of what it did on Kutcher’s opening night.
*Not surprisingly, AMC’s zombie series “The Walking Dead” has been renewed for a third season. It has been killing nationally on Sunday night.
* Inquiring minds want to know: Why was Channel 4 meteorologist Mike Cejka working weekdays on Tuesday? My sources tell me that Amelia Segal was on special assignment and that Cejka remains on the weekend shift.
* ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” opened with an impressive 11.2 rating on Channel 7 Sunday, which probably is a triumph of its advertising campaign. It also did very well nationally. Before it can be declared a hit, let’s see how many viewers come back for week two of the fairy tale series.
pergament@msn.com

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